


wandering waters

by deskclutter



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the far shore of the lake, shrouded in shadows, mysterious, dark -- there lay the forest unknown.</p><p>Written for Fakiru Week 2013: senses</p>
            </blockquote>





	wandering waters

On the near shore of the lake stood Gold Crown Town, city of swans and stories. It was a city whose story had been laid to rest, but whose streets ran with a thousand other stories that had surged in to fill the wake. A tale curled behind every corner, nestled high in the clock tower and roosting between the cobbles, which was no less than the fault of the city's most infamous son, Herr Drosselmeyer, whose grave harboured its own strange tale (but that is a story of silver hands and gilded words, and it will be told another day).  
  
On the far shore of the lake, shrouded in shadows, mysterious, dark -- there lay the forest unknown. It was a very old forest, older than the town of tales and lost time. Sometimes if you walked too far afield beyond the trees you knew, you were liable to wander all through the night or until the forest deigned to lead you to the lake shore again. And even the trees were never always the same, as though sometimes they uprooted themselves to shuffle around for something of a change in pace. There were strange fish in strange ponds, here one day and gone the next, as though the ponds lifted themselves on feet of their own devising and walked away.  
  
Fakir sometimes liked to wander the forest, seeking out a solitude that matched his own. He quested there between the trees and leaves for golden words that he could set to page, for phrases otherwise beyond his ken and expressions that danced otherwise beyond his reach. He was a medium for story, and the forest was welcome to his approach.  
  
Ahiru also liked to walk the forest's bounds, sometimes for love of the woods and sometimes just to see that the land did not change the line of the lake's shore to be too close to Gold Crown. For in the wake of Mytho's shattered heart, stories were more like to mingle and cause trouble through it, such as when a batch of cooling gingerbread men had disappeared from Ebine's kitchen only to be seen running as fast as they could towards the forest where they had presumably met either foxes or rivers or both. A mysterious forest could be a dangerous temptation, in the hearts of many stories.  
  
And because they both went into the forest, sometimes their paths crossed.  
  
"There's a new stream," Fakir told Ahiru once, when this happened. "It sings as it runs and its water looks cold and delicious, as if one taste could satisfy a deep thirst one never knew existed." He smiled at her crookedly. "So I thought I shouldn't drink of it." Fakir, who loved and was loved by yarns and tales and all other manner of story, took great care in how he carried himself in a mysterious forest. When all other recourse seemed impossible, there was always Ahiru to be counted on.  
  
So he led her to the stream, where Ahiru also saw all the things that he had seen, and she said to him, "I'm going for a swim. Don't drink!"  
  
(And where others would have heard only a faintly nagging series of quacks from a small duck, Fakir, being attuned to stories, could understand her speech, which only goes to show that all things have their goodness and their evil, depending on where you stand.)  
  
Ahiru dove into the water, and when she was full submerged, she heard the water's song, louder and clearer than ever before. "Dance with me," she invited the stream, for she heard the note of sadness that wove throughout its singing and that sadness touched her heart.  
  
"With a duck?" said the stream, surprised but softly amused. This did not deter Ahiru.  
  
"What is more natural than that water should dance with waterfowl?" Ahiru said. "But if it will make you feel better, you should think of me as Princess Tutu, for that is who I am." So the stream consented to dance with her and they spoke at length on diverse things -- about loneliness and the lengths to which some creatures went in order to be wanted or needed or beloved.  
  
Fakir was waiting for her when she surfaced and shook herself off. "The stream's diverting itself so it's not going towards the town any more," he said, pointing to where trickles of water had begun to double back, softening and delving to make a stream's bed. "We'd better go before it cuts us off. Can you walk, or shall I carry you?"  
  
"She won't harm you," Ahiru said. " Look, you can already see that it doesn't look as delicious as it was, right? But you can carry me."  
  
"The shine's worn off," he said in not-quite-agreement.  
  
"It wanted to be wanted," Ahiru said as Fakir held her close and set off towards the forest's edge. "And it tried so so hard to make itself wanted that it became something to fear. She said she was going away to reflect on herself..."  
  
"That's good," said Fakir, as Ahiru drifted into sleep.  
  
They never saw that stream again, but some time later, perhaps in the time it takes for a stream to grow into a river, they heard that there was a mermaid who went down to the sea and found her way to a singing school, where all the teachers spoke glowingly of her and she was much sought after in the region.


End file.
